An Immigration Crisis in a Nation of Immigrants: Why Amending the Fourteenth Amendment Won’t Solve Our Problems

By Alberto R. Gonzales. Full text here.

The concerns over another terrorist attack, a sluggish economic recovery, high unemployment rates, and state and local budget deficits have propelled immigration policy to the forefront of political debate in the United States. America’s current approach to immigration is an abject failure, undermining the rule of law and our national security. This has prompted various legislative proposals relating to citizenship, including amending the U.S. Constitution to make clear that children born in the United States to unauthorized immigrants are not entitled to birthright citizenship. The Article presents the reasons why these various state and federal level “solutions” are either ineffective in solving our immigration crisis or likely unconstitutional. Instead, the President and Congress should invest their time and energy to pass comprehensive immigration reform on the federal level.